Emmanuel Macron’s Central Africa tour ended on Saturday. He visited Gabon, Angola as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo-Brazzaville – four nations he had yet to set foot on in the garb of president. Faced with the now privileged partners of a major part of the continent, such as China, Russia, India and even Turkey, the Head of State has worked to restore the image of a France in decline.
In Gabon, Macron declares the era of Françafrique “over”
Emmanuel Macron’s first stop was in Gabon, in Libreville, on Thursday, in the wake of the summit for the preservation of tropical forests, co-organized by France and Gabon. He thus affirmed that the era of “Françafrique” was “over” and that France was now a “neutral interlocutor” on the continent. He had so far, since his first term, avoided using the word “Françafrique”. The Head of State had already sketched out last Monday, in a speech in Paris, the end of the French “backyard” in West Africa and called for new partnerships on the continent, far from opaque ties and support for leaders in place inherited from the colonial period and inherent to “Françafrique”.
In addition, the Gabonese opposition has been accusing the French president for several weeks of “softening” President Ali Bongo by making this visit to Libreville in the middle of an election year in Gabon. “I did not come to invest anyone. I only came to show my friendship and my consideration to a country and a brotherly people, insisted Emmanuel Macron. In Gabon as elsewhere, France is a neutral interlocutor who speaks to everyone. ” Alongside his counterpart, the president repeated his desire to “build a balanced partnership” and “carry out common causes” with the countries of the continent. And this, whether on the climate, biodiversity or the economic and industrial challenges of the 21st century.
The military presence in Africa, “neither a withdrawal nor a disengagement”
During his visit to Libreville, he spent a few hours in the Raponda Walker arboretum, a primary forest at the gates of the capital where the Gabonese Minister of Water and Forests, Lee White, presented him with the local biodiversity and the risks of deforestation. This is where Emmanuel Macron also assured that the reduction in the French military presence announced on Monday, after ten years of concentration on the fight against jihadist groups in the Sahel, did not constitute “neither a withdrawal nor a disengagement”.
It is a question of “adapting this system” by taking into account the evolution of threats and the “needs” of partner countries and by offering more “cooperation and training”, he explained. “Very clearly, the needs are there”, he underlined, citing for the Gulf of Guinea maritime piracy, clandestine gold panning, “environmental crimes linked to drug trafficking”, the latter being fueled by a “terrorist movement that we also know in the Lake Chad region”, in reference to the jihadist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap).
According to the president, this redevelopment concerns the French bases in Libreville, Abidjan and Dakar. It implies “the presence of more regional soldiers on our bases and therefore to share, to co-manage these bases”, he explained. The new device is expected to be discontinued by July 14.
Angola, France’s new “pivot” in Africa
Angola, on the second day of his tour, was the most economical stage of this visit to Africa. If Luanda rises among the first oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, a place it disputes with Lagos, the Elysée has nevertheless insisted on the fact that it is not the offshore fields that drive French ambitions towards this country. . The relations that France intends to develop with this former Portuguese-speaking colony, independent since 1975, would illustrate, on the contrary, the new French approach to the continent. Like Nigeria, Kenya or Ethiopia, Angola could be among France’s new “pivotal countries” on the continent, while Paris is chaining diplomatic setbacks in its old “backyards”, particularly in West Africa. the West.
In Luanda, the French president took part in an economic forum focused on agriculture, in which more than 50 French companies took part, before meeting his Angolan counterpart Joao Lourenço. Cooperation agreements have been concluded to strengthen the Angolan agricultural sector, while the Portuguese-speaking country in southern Africa imports a large part of its food products. It is a “food sovereignty strategy in which we believe for the African continent”, consisting of “building balanced and reciprocal partnerships” and developing “‘made in Africa’ which must become a reference”, said the president. French.
In the DRC, warnings, including against Rwanda
Highly anticipated on the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Emmanuel Macron, during his visit to Kinshasa on Saturday, did not clearly condemn Rwanda, as the Congolese asked him to do. But he issued strong warnings, including in Kigali. The DRC “must not be the spoils of war, the open looting (of the country) must stop. Neither looting, nor balkanization, nor war!”, Hammered the French president, during a press conference with his Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi, while the latter had just deplored the “unjust and barbaric aggression” of which his country considers itself to be a victim.
The DRC accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebellion, which since 2022 has seized large swaths of territory in the province of North Kivu, a region rich in minerals. UN experts have corroborated this support and several Western chancelleries have denounced it, although Kigali denies it. During his visit, Emmanuel Macron did not announce any sanctions, but he called on everyone to “take responsibility, including Rwanda”. “What we expect from Rwanda and the others (actors) is to commit and respect the appointments that they give themselves under the supervision of the mediators and if they do not respect, then yes, it there may be sanctions, I say it very clearly”, he also underlined.
Moreover, in Kinshasasur, Emmanuel Macron was overtaken by certain remarks by his former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian. In January 2019, he called the controversial election of Felix Tshisekedi an “African compromise”. “When there are irregularities (in elections in the West), we don’t talk about American-style, French-style compromises,” the Congolese president said in response to a question from the French press. Look at us differently by respecting us, by considering us as real partners and not always with a paternalistic look, with the idea always of knowing what is necessary for us”, he hammered to the applause of the Congolese press.
In Brazzaville, a quick and half-hearted visit
Between Luanda and Kinshasa, Emmanuel Macron only stayed a few hours in the capital of the Republic of Congo. The Brazzaville stage, where Denis Sassou Nguesso has reigned with an iron fist for almost 40 years, appeared somewhat against the current of the new orientation of the Elysée, which wants to break with “Françafrique”.
Emmanuel Macron underlined among the subjects of bilateral interest the “memorial, historical and cultural” aspect. While the Congolese president did not fail to point out to him his too express passage. Denis Sassou Nguesso thus listed the historical and tourist sites that the French president could see in Brazzaville when he comes “longer”. There is “the Savorgnan de Brazza memorial, the Poto-Poto painting school, the Félix-Eboué monument and so many others”, he said.
The Head of State conceded that he stopped in Congo “because you should not humiliate anyone when you go on a tour”, even if his interlocutors are not always elected to the “best democratic standard”. “We are not here to serve him soup,” he insisted, however. “We do with the leaders who are there with respect […] seeing our agreements and disagreements and saying what’s wrong when it’s wrong, which is what I did yesterday,” he said.